


Stars So Bright

by ThreadbareT



Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Clean.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:54:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23189557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThreadbareT/pseuds/ThreadbareT
Summary: It's just an average Friday night for the (nearly) forgotten Tracy Brother, as he steps out of TB5 to stop an obsolete weapon of mass destruction misfiring.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	Stars So Bright

In theory the next few seconds are going to be child’s play.

The airlock is already exhaling. I can see the pressure dropping on the display inside my visor. I can feel myself at the edge of the station’s gravity. When the door opens, I’ll take one small step, a skip, and a jump, and then I just keep on going, out into the cold of endless night. A few simple corrections with my jet pack, and I let my momentum carry me all the way to the satellite. Another correction to slow down… and then I disarm a weapon of mass destruction, before it fires at Marineville, or blows up in my face.

Yeah. Simple.

Except… Empty space isn’t empty. There might be anything from war-wreckage, to meteorites, to lost washers and debris out there. If somebody lost the nut while they were fixing a space station years ago, or if I encounter the ice that broke off a bad seal on my own station last year, or anything else, then it might be going hundreds of miles an hour, faster than sound, faster than a bullet.  
All that stands between me and certain death is a Kevlar weave polymer spacesuit. A little rip, a hit to a seal, or my visor, and I could be exposed to absolute zero and an absolute vacuum. Even if I’m not breached, I could be knocked off course, and it would only take a few heartbeats to be out of range for a correction, to get back on course, or to get home. I might end up falling back to Earth the wrong way, or cast out, to drift into space, a needle too small to be found in the haystack.

The doors open.  
I cast off.

I soar weightless through the void. The weapons platform looms large overhead. A giant cricket, with satellite dishes as compound eyes, and a score of missile pods on the underside of the long, segmented belly. One of the missile bays is preparing to launch, venting coolant, as the engines of the missile are stirred to waking.

It’s old. A wartime model, one of many that still lurk up here. The markings give no clues to the payload on the missiles. There are no good options. The least worst scenario is a conventional explosive device, designed to punch its way into a bunker. More likely it will be a nuclear, or biological warhead, designed to wipe out entire states, and leave them uninhabitable for entire generations. Yeah, there’s a reason America built cities capable of hiding underground.  
Ever been to Marineville? I made that mistake once. Most the week it looks empty, like there are four WASP officers and one submarine. On a Friday night? It’s a different story. Don’t even try to get to a bar. Every WASP ship on the seaboard is in town, and the crews are thirsty.

Did I mention it’s Friday?

Yeah. Go figure. If the antique pile of relays that laughably calls itself a computer aboard that thing fires, an awful lot of people are going to have a real, real, bad night.

I make my correction and fly up to meet the platform. I land on the underside, by the hatch of the missile bay. I latch on with a magnetic tether, and find the inspection hatch for the control system.

In theory it should be a ten second job to cut through the lock and hinges to reveal the controls. Seeing as I don’t want to end the world, or be at ground zero of a nuclear flash so bright Marineville will think its midday, I choose to take a leisurely sixteen seconds. The hatch breaks free, and drifts off down into Earth’s orbit. It will hit the atmosphere in a few hours, going Mach-God-Knows and burn up. Or hit me on my way home. I hope for the former.

Within the hatch everything is a mess. Coolant has leaked and covered the relays. One has shorted and burnt out, welding the contacts closed, jump starting a firing sequence. The timer is jumping around all over the place, stuttering and unreliable, because… well… some deity with a sense of humour wants to pay me back for telling Dad the brown uniforms looked dumb, and blue was much more our colour.  
I clean off the labels from the wiring loom as best I can, and see what I’m dealing with.

“B-B-Bio Weapons,” Brains says, somewhere over my radio link, somewhere beyond the thundering echo of my heart. “That is… interesting.”  
“Interesting?” I asked.  
“We have to, uh, deal with the payload in orbit. If it reaches Earths atmosphere it could cause a, uh, plague of b-b-biblical proportions.”  
“So, how do we nullify it?” I ask.  
“Incineration,” Tin Tin says.  
“Well, yeah, that might, uh, work!” Brains agrees. “But first we have to find a way to activate the manoeuvring rockets without blowing the whole thing apart. At this age, if any of the pipes leaked, and fuel vents into the filter receptical¬”  
“Brains!” I smile. “Can I make that happen?”  
Tin Tin laughs. “Set it flying to a safe distance then blow up the fuel cells? That would incinerate the virus.”  
“Yes!” Brains sounds excited, and schematics start flickering over my visor.

I set to work, concentrating on each and every action, taking such care over what I was doing that I don’t have the time or space to think about the stuttering timer, the ticking time bomb, the hatch opening so the missile can slide forwards into the launch ready position.

I make the last connection.

The platforms thrusters fire. It goes one way. I release my tether and kick off the other. I tumble through space, counting down, five, four, three, two…one.

I lurch as my pack kicks in, making a correction, accelerating me away.

Seconds are running out.

I adjust one last time, and point at the orange frying pan I call home, accelerating as hard as I can.

And then I wait, drifting, flying, and hoping.

Really, really, wishing we had gone with those brown trouse¬

The platform explodes in a glare of white light behind me. The percussion wave hits me like a sledgehammer. I spin and wheel, in a dizzy blur. I think I see home tumbling closer and closer. My visor flashes warnings. Bright red alerts.  
I reach the station and reach out, at the airlock that flashes past.

My fingers find the railing and close around it. I anchor myself and take a breath, looking back.

The threat is gone. Marineville can sleep safe, never knowing how close they came to being obliterated. I drag myself into the airlock and gravity takes hold.

I fall to the deck and lay still, wheezing and gasping, glad I can still breathe.  
Another three months, and I get to go Earthside, to lay by the pool, and stare at the skies. We call those the Easy Turns. You know why? Well… how many times I ever had to hitch a ride on the Big Green Whale? None. Zilch. Nada. I’m pretty sure everybody else puts Five on mute.

Three more months, and home.

What’s the worst that can happen? Don’t ask. Don’t even think it, until I’ve had breakfast and a coffee.


End file.
